BANK OF ENGLAND, AS IT IS, AND AS IT OUGHT TO BE; WITH OBSERVATIONS UPON THE GOVERNMENT MEASURE BY WILLIAM JOHN LAWSON, AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF BANKING,' &c., &c. "Our Bank of England Notes are the true financial irrigators of the country, constituting our sole sound and secure paper currency. We only want the Bank of England to be what it is called, and all will go well." PREFATORY NOTE. THE recent failure of Messrs. Attwood, Spooner, and Co., of Birmingham, with liabilities amounting to close upon £1,000,000, including a note circulation of upwards of £20,000, is an event which, we think, ought to induce the Chancellor of the Exchequer to pause before he proceeds with his measure of selling the privilege of issuing notes to the country bankers, without first ascertaining their ability to pay them. Such banks cannot object to Governmental investigation into their affairs, for the reason that, where large profits are secured to them to the exclusion of others, the nation has a right to ascertain the solvency of the parties to whom the monopoly of the issue of notes is granted. In the case of the Bank of England, the Government have already placed that corporation on as sound a footing as it is possible to place it. Consequently its notes are looked upon, both by natives and foreigners, as equal to those of the Government itself. The following is the recorded deliberate opinion of one of the first merchants in the world, the late Sir Francis Baring:- The Bank of England is to the agriculture, commerce, and finance of Great Britain, a SUN; and the CIRCULATION of so many millions of its paper, is the BASIS on which its convenience, property, and safety, have hitherto rested." LONDON, March, 1865. WILLIAM JOHN LAWSON. |